


Starlight, Your Memories

by NatMatryoshka



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Fluff and Angst, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force-Sensitive Rey, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Kylo Ren Redemption, Mention of Past Abuse, Mentioned Darth Vader, POV Rey (Star Wars), Planet Naboo (Star Wars), Reylo Fanfiction Anthology, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-14 01:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16029953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NatMatryoshka/pseuds/NatMatryoshka
Summary: "Ben Solo was ten years old when, in the outskirts of the capital, a little girl was born.Her parents called her Rey and, after she was old enough to walk, they left her in the care of Master Luke Skywalker and vanished without a trace soon after. No one knew who they were, or why they chose an odd hermit as guardian of their only daughter, but many could smell the scent of cheap wine in the father’s breath: they were two derelicts, and maybe they had realized in time they couldn’t do anything good for their daughter.Rey was a Sensitive, just like Ben. The Force had entwined their lives a long time before."





	1. Chapter 1

 

_It was a stormy night, a year after the end of the war, when a child was born on Naboo. He had hair as black as the storm clouds and eyes that sparkled like stars. He was the child of a princess and a rogue._

_He was named Ben, after the old hermit who had reunited the princess with her twin, and his birth was saluted by three days of celebrations and parades. No one had any doubt: the House of Naberrie had a new king. People raised their chalices, Princess Leia held her baby close to her chest and his uncle, Luke Skywalker, one of the last Sensitives, touched his forehead with two fingers. The Force was strong with him, running through his veins just as in his mother’s, his grandfather’s, and even in Luke’s._

_No one could ever imagine what was going to happen years later. How would they?_

_Ben grew up serenely in the halls of the Royal Palace, while the princess ruled Naboo with wisdom and her husband travelled the galaxy. The darkness that brought the seeds of war with it was a distant memory. Luke Skywalker continued to watch over the Sensitives, even though they were small in number, each passing year. The Force whispered in his ear, guiding him wherever he roamed, but not even that voice, made of wind and past spirits, could have warned him of the darkness to come._

_His family was not the only ones watching over Ben. A dark creature had sensed him from the moment he was just a foetus inside of his mother’s womb, and his gaze never left the child again: Darth Vader’s blood was calling him, together with the promise that the child could become even greater and more powerful than his grandfather. The Dark Side of the Force had been defeated thanks to the twins and their father’s redemption, the man that, in the beginning, was only known as Anakin Skywalker: it was him who threw Vader’s mask away to save his son, and died after coming back to his old self. The whole galaxy breathed a sigh of relief, evil appeared to be defeated... but some seeds endured. The most persistent ones, not wanting to let go of a single grain of darkness, hate, subjugation._

_Snoke was one of these._

_His thirst for power was impossible to control, and it was certain that, thanks to the right means, he was going to bring the Dark Side back to its former glory. The child who was soon to be born was all he needed: he could sense the Force surrounding the child, could taste the raw power that was going to run in his veins with age, once he had mastered the art of the lightsaber and the gifts of the Sensitives. He watched his every move, counted each of his breaths, and waited._

_Waiting for the child to be able to understand his words, Snoke had left him a gift. More time would be needed before anyone could see its effects, but he was in no rush: after all, years passed before Darth Vader took control of the Galactic Empire. Patience was necessary; he needed to set everything up for the arrival of the disciple who was going to fulfil his plans and work relentlessly so that the boy’s destiny could be accomplished._

_Ben’s hair grew and he became taller. He was already showing the first signs of his Sensitive powers, but he hadn’t begun training with his uncle yet. The princess watched him play from the window of her study while she was busy with matters concerning the planet and the Senate, matters keeping her away from her family. He was a silent yet happy child and a future great king, it was written in the stars that witnessed his birth…_

_Until, one day, Snoke’s gift began to manifest._

_It happened during a sunny morning. Ben had recently turned nine, and he was running in the garden towards his favourite spot: a tree with thick green fronds, a place below which a group of Tooka that Ben had managed to befriend usually gathered to play. He was holding a small plate of milk, thrilled at the idea of spending some time with them before starting the history lessons his mother forced him to attend. He smiled, a joyful curve that fell after he reached the tree._

_Katti, his favourite Tooka, was lying beneath the short bushes, unresponsive to his calls. He was dead._

_In the years to follow, he realized he couldn’t remember exactly what happened in that moment: closing his eyes, he could recall falling to his knees and holding the little body of his friend in his hands, terrified, while tears filled his dark eyes. He hugged him in pain, but the question about what made him lay the animal on the ground once more, and lightly brush his face with two fingers, as if that gesture could actually do any good, was left unanswered. He only knew that, amongst the tears falling down his cheeks and chin, he saw the eyes of the Tooka slowly opening up, and the soft tail moving from right to left as he suddenly jumped to his paws, alive. They looked into each other’s eyes for a moment, then Ben had held him all of a sudden, shaken by deep sobs, terrified by what had occured. A moment later, his uncle Luke was by his side._

_Luke didn’t do anything, besides grabbing Ben by the shoulders and staring into his eyes, as if he could find any sign that could possibly explain what just happened. He looked right out of the window of his study, and yet he couldn’t believe that the Tooka had actually been resurrected. He understood the confusion that took hold of his nephew, he saw Ben’s lips tremble, and yet he was silent. Whatever the older man was thinking, he didn’t share with the child, so he went back to the Palace in the grip of his demons, leaving Ben alone under that tree with the little Tooka licking his hands. Leia had arrived moments later to console him, but bewilderment and fear were the only feelings that lingered in that memory, even after so many years. Those, and the sound of his mother’s voice asking him what happened, wiping each one of his tears away._

_His gift had become part of him: he could bend death at his will. The Force couldn’t do anything but let itself be disrupted by the uncertain touch of a child who still didn’t acknowledge or understand his enormous power. Luke stayed in the shadows, worried, because he knew far too well the tale about the rise of Darth Vader. The tales whispered from mouth to ear, sung in the ballads and reported in most folk tales, telling stories about how Anakin Skywalker had gone mad after bringing back his beloved wife from the underworld, Padmé Amidala, who died after giving birth to her twin children. He looked at his nephew, and that power made him realize that history was going to repeat itself once again._

_No matter how much he was looked upon with suspicion by those who had found out about his peculiarity, Ben used his gift again. Small animals regained the breath of life, even flowers lifted up on their stems when his trembling hands touched them lightly, after a distracted foot had stomped on them. But, rather than inspiring reverential fear, that power only succeeded in pushing everyone around him away._

_His mother was never going to exile him: she loved him too much, no matter how much her life as a princess and a senator was slowly drifting her away from her family more and more. She was a Sensitive as well, and could feel his fear, the tormented feelings surrounding him, not letting him sleep. His father, though, had started to harbour some doubts. He was frightened by his son’s power and, no matter how deeply he loved him, his inability to connect with the Force prevented him from fully understanding Ben’s emotions. He knew too well that he should have tried, should have taken his hand and told him he was going to overcome every problem, but the feeling of inadequacy made his father avoid his family even more. His father went back to his rogue life, smuggling cargos around the galaxy, and he was barely heard about thereafter... after all, Han Solo was never suited for court life, vicious voices whispered behind the princess’ back._

_Ben began to think of himself as a monster, frightened by the image he saw in his mirror every day. He began his training with Luke and, despite how clear it was how much his uncle feared his powers, he proved to be a promising student. Snoke’s voice never abandoned him: he whispered promises of greatness to Ben’s ear, laying out everything he could achieve once freed of his uncle, freed of his father, of his always absent mother, because no one would be of any importance once he became the new galactic Emperor. He had to rid himself of them. Embrace the Dark Side. Embrace that legacy, the one his grandfather had left for him and that was soon going to become his only destiny..._

_Those he loved might have helped him, but their hearts were far away. Snoke took advantage of that to sow a seed of doubt inside Ben’s soul, letting it germinate and convince Ben to disavow his family. Telling Ben that instead of loving and accepting him, they left him alone. It was all a lie, but how could anyone try to convince a child, whose world crumbled apart, not to trust the only person who seemed to care for him? That was the moment Kylo Ren, as Snoke liked to call him, started to drift away from his family._

_Ben Solo was ten years old when, in the outskirts of the capital, a little girl was born. Her parents called her Rey and, after she was old enough to walk, they left her in the care of Master Luke Skywalker and vanished without a trace soon after. No one knew who they were, or why they chose an odd hermit as guardian of their only daughter, but many could smell the scent of cheap wine in the father’s breath: they were two derelicts, and maybe they had realized in time they couldn’t do anything good for their daughter._

_Rey was a Sensitive, just like Ben. The Force had entwined their lives a long time before._


	2. Chapter 2

 

Rey woke up to the sound of birds singing. She blinked and, for a moment, couldn’t recognize where she was: usually, in her dreams, she ran through garbage and dusty refuse in the poorest district of the capital, following two figures who couldn’t be anyone else but her parents. She had to open the window and breathe in the clean air of the woods to remind herself the slums were nothing more than a distant memory.

Theed, the capital of Naboo, was splendid and hospitable, full of witnesses of its prestigious past. The House of Naberrie had ruled over it with wisdom for centuries, filling it with monuments and gardens, and that small paradise had survived intact even during the war that ravaged the galaxy: maybe Darth Vader had chosen to move the Empire’s capital out of respect for his wife, whom he had loved so much, rather than for military strategy. Even Bail Organa, first counsellor to Queen Padmé, had done everything in his power so that the planet could prosper and resist hostile incursions, and now his smile carved in stone greeted anyone passing through the city main square.

She heard those legends from old loquacious space pirates and historians. Her Master didn’t like talking about the past, even less about his family and his father. Every time the conversation drifted towards that topic, Rey could see a dark shadow descend upon his eyes, and the man quickly cut it short. No questions, no curiosity: it was clear how much those stories must have hurt him. She had learned to live with him for far too long for it to upset her, as it used to when she was a child.

She hastily got dressed and walked down to the area where her Master’s little hut was. The royal palace wasn’t that far but, even though Luke Skywalker had every right to live in there, he preferred to retreat in that clearing not too far from one of the region’s main lakes. He claimed he detested court protocols and the mistrustful glances that many dignitaries gave anyone who had something to do with the Force, but Rey suspected the rumours concerning Master Luke’s nephew had played the main role in that decision. When Ben Solo still lived in the palace, no one would have missed the looks they shared during their sporadic encounters. Their eyes spoke of past sufferings and present conflicts, of something unresolved.

 _Right, Ben_ , she thought to herself while sitting on her favourite boulder, a big rock covered in moss in the middle of the clearing. She had known him for years, and when she was a child she could barely stand him. Always silent and gloomy, he holed himself up in the library, only going out to train with his uncle, but even during those times he didn’t really interact with anyone. His dark eyes were always filled with torment, and her ten-year-old self didn’t possess the awareness to put herself in his place, to understand what was causing that agony.

Until that moment, years later – when she was an adolescent, he was a young man – they had trained together, and what struck her the most was the feeling of _familiarity_ forming between them while fighting. It was just as her movements involuntarily answered his, almost as if an invisible thread was tying them, coordinating them in some sort of a dance. They breathed in sync, feeling excitement, rage, relief all at the same time. She felt electricity running through her body and merging both her sensations and the ones crossing Ben’s soul. At first she didn’t pay attention to it but, as the training escalated, that impression grew stronger and more concrete. Luke’s lips tightened whenever he watched them train and they got back on their on their feet together, yet he didn’t speak. Figuring out what he was thinking was impossible; whether he was worried or simply reflecting on their improvements was unknow.

She read that, in past centuries, that two people could be bound by the Force. Age, social class, or species differences were not important: they shared a connection no one could explain, not even themselves. Books told of shared dreams, visions of the future and past, one’s thoughts turning into the words of the other... similar to what she and Ben had experienced. She couldn’t say for sure, but what she felt in his presence couldn’t be a mere coincidence.

Ben was as inscrutable as the sky preceding a storm. There were days when he allowed himself to smile a little, because all the dark clouds surrounding him were swept away, and others where his fury swamped over her, frightening her. It was as if he couldn’t put a stop to whatever was eating his heart away, as if a dark and unpredictable force stripped him from the serenity of his everyday life, subjecting him to its whims.

Once, while they were fighting, she lost her balance and fell to the ground, due to a violent cutting blow from Ben. Even if she had just started wielding sabers and staffs, she was a quick learner, yet she found herself unprepared to respond to his furious, yet clean and precise blows. Ben towered over her and, when Rey looked up to shield herself from those blows, she glimpsed a strange light in his dark eyes, and it scared her. They were full of anger, eager to harm and, for an instant – an infinitesimal instant, and yet she heard it, she was sure about it – the sound of a voice made the air surrounding her vibrate. Sinister, cold, mellow.

_Hit._

At the same time, she felt the burning urge to hit him in the stomach with her staff. It wouldn’t have taken long. She was close enough to strike; all she needed was to reach her weapon and lift it up... It was like the voice was speaking to provoke both of them, but she wasn’t sure whether it was intentional or not. The only thing she was sure about was that she felt rage, a feeling that started to consume her like liquid fire.

Luke had separated them before she could fight back, pushing Ben to the side with a cold fury. Rey, jumping up on her feet, had enough time to see the eyes of the man change: he was confused. Scared, as if he didn’t really know where he was. And yet, there had been moments where he acted kindly towards her, holding his hand out to help her stand up after a particularly intense training session, or when he saw her studying in the palace library, patting her on the head as a greeting, gifting her with an unexpected smile. How could two sides so different from each other exist in the same person?

Luke greeted her with a nod, then he sat under his favourite tree and started meditating. She almost hadn’t see him coming, probably because she was so absorbed in her thoughts. Every morning of study and training started like that, then proceeded to the library, to study the history of the galaxy and of the ancient Sensitives. She loved legends, opening those old books and reading line by line, chin between her hands, lost in stories that (maybe) took place millennia before. Luke raised an eyebrow, labelling them as mere fantasies, yet he himself had been part of those stories, and when he thought no one could see him, nostalgia crossed his face.

 

*

 

“Your mind is elsewhere today. I sense some distance.”

Luke, oddly enough, had accompanied her to the library that afternoon. Even though he had no love for the palace, sometimes he felt the need to lock himself up in the silence of those dimly lighted rooms to retrieve some old volumes. Holocrons and recordings had replaced paper almost everywhere in the galaxy, but the beautiful wood covered halls of Theed’s library were still home, by the will of Queen Padmé, to scrolls and volumes. Rey couldn’t be more grateful, as she enjoyed walking through the bookshelves, smelling the scent of yellowed and dry paper. She wasn’t used to having company though, thus why she didn’t reply to Luke right away.

“Distance? No, I was just... thinking.”

Luke chuckled, indulgent. “I’ve already figured that out on my own. I meant you’re so absorbed in your thoughts you didn’t even notice I’ve been repeating the same question for at least five minutes. Whatever you’re mulling on, must be pretty important?”

Rey rubbed her temples, turning her gaze first right, then left. Sunlight filtered in through the windows; the farthest one from their table was left open to let the spring breeze in. When she was younger, she liked to grab a book and lay on her bed in front of the shutters, and let the gentle breeze tickle her bare feet while the lines in front of her eyes got blurrier, and sleep came to take her away. She felt her lids becoming heavy and shook her head to ward off that sudden drowsiness. What was she really thinking? Of Ben, of the soft curve of his smiling lips? Or of his eyes filled with anger, and the look of mistrust they had showed her too many times? Or of herself, to the unexpected desire of _understanding_ she was starting to feel?

“More or less.”

She was a champion when it came to providing vague answers, especially when she didn’t want anyone to actually understand what she had in mind. She flipped the pages of the book to give the impression she just forgot to read an important paragraph, but Luke must have discerned the truth behind that gesture, because he kept looking at her silently. They sat close to each other in silence, accompanied by the sounds of the pages turning and the rustling of leaves, out in the gardens.

The main door slammed open against the wall, and a dark figure made its entrance, walking through the door with wide strides, dragging a black cloak along in his wake. Ben Solo, the future king, arrived in the middle of the hall and stopped there, as if a spell had transfixed him in the spot. He threw a glance at his uncle and another at Rey, who had closed the book and lifted her gaze towards him, and in a moment he realized he wasn’t the only one to chose the library as a refuge from others.

Before he could turn around and leave, Luke rose.

For a single instant, Rey though he would grab him by the arm to tell him something he always held back from expressing, but the Master did nothing more than look at the young man with a mixture of sadness and resolution, almost as if he had perceived something he didn’t like at all, and wanted to tell his nephew he already knew about it. Ben never looked down for a moment.

The air between them seemed to still, erasing at once the pleasant indolence of a summer afternoon. Rey could almost feel it vibrate, while an anxiety she couldn’t name had grabbed the pit of her stomach, twisting it.

The Force shuddered and whispered something, but she was too nervous to catch whatever message it was trying to send her. She remained silent.

She waited for a fight between them, but after a painfully infinite silence, Ben turned his head and walked away, but not before throwing her an uninterpretable glance. Even after he walked through the door, disappearing from their sight, Rey struggled to give that feeling a name. She only knew his eyes were completely empty, devoid of the same powerful and energetic life that filled them only a few days earlier during their trainings.

Luke didn’t say anything else that day. They left the library in silence, the golden rays of sunset drawing figures on the stone pavement, both of them occupied in their own thoughts that the other couldn’t understand. Rey headed towards her room alone, while Luke stayed in the clearing where they started their training to observe the trees quietly move in the breeze. In any other situation, she would have tried questioning him, but his eyes told her it would be better to keep any concerns to herself.

A few hours later, lying on the bed in the darkness of her room, she let her gaze run to the small blue lamp she kept on to help her sleep and tried to clear her mind, without any success. Luke always scolded her, saying she should first have learnt to be less impetuous before even thinking of going down her path as Sensitive, but she was stubborn, grumbling every time she closed her eyes, trying to erase every distraction. What other choice did she have? That path was her whole life.

She was afraid to close her eyes and find Ben’s gaze behind her lids, empty and cold as before. So, she tried focusing on the colour of the sea, evoking the calming sound of the waves as she always did when something frightened her, and after a few minutes she could smell the salty air. Someone was laughing in the distance, challenging the wind to mess with their hair even more. Her parents? she thought idly, then fell asleep.

 

 

_One day, when she was a child of no more than seven, she beat up a group of children._

_She found them in an alley in Theed’s lower district, while they were kicking a creature she didn’t even remember, maybe a bird, maybe a rodent. The animal made small, weak rattles, not even moving anymore: it was waiting for an act of mercy that never came. The three kids laughed wildly; one of them even had a stick to keep tormenting the creature._

_She dove right in, hitting them while she was blinded with rage and without thinking. She didn’t care that they were bigger than her, that one of them had pushed the animal to the side to better clobber her: a violent fury shook her, almost as if she had fallen victim to a spirit directing her movements. She didn’t stop, not even upon seeing blood dripping from their mouths, not even when two went down, while the third ran for the hills. She didn’t stop when teeth broke out and one of the torturers spat a mouthful of blood. Escaping through the alleys and fighting to grab even a single piece of bread had molded her. She wasn’t afraid of anything._

_She kept fighting them, almost as if punches and kicks could help her bring the little creature lying dead in the dirt back to life. She growled with the fury of an animal defending her pack, scraping her knuckles, and the one of the kid’s sweaty hands choked her in a useless attempt to hold her rage back._

_Only when everything was over, and the last kid had managed to escape, did she stop. Breathing again, with her ears ringing and tears of rage filling her eyes, she rubbed her aching hands. Completely alone, she screamed to the sky everything she felt: an hoarse cry, the pain of those who had struggled for a long time just to find themselves as helpless as before. Then she went back home, running without stop to later hide under her blankets like a wounded animal. Luke didn’t see her._

_She cried all night long, until she fell asleep. She cried for being alone, and because no one was there to reassure her, caress her hair and whisper kind words into her ear. She hadn’t really wanted to hurt those kids, but seeing that animal laying dead at their feet and feeling its agony had been too much, even for a child that used to fend for herself. She cried because a sinister voice had pushed her to keep hitting them with more strength and, if only for a moment, she felt joy at the thought of repaying the death of that vulnerable creature with theirs._

_She cried because deep inside of her dwelled a dark force unknown to her. And she was afraid that, in time, it would grow stronger than her will._


	3. Chapter 3

_A few months later_

 

 

The man fell without making any noise, with same sad grace of leaves falling in autumn. On his aged face, there were no traces of pain, nor fear. It was... sorrowful. As if his last, desperate attempt had failed, and he had nothing left at his disposal to try and make things right.

“He killed him.” A hoarse voice was getting weaker while speaking those three words, tears flowing down her face. A woman, she didn’t know who, but who loved that man and his murderer, could sense it. She was far away, restlessly sitting on her Senate seat defenceless just as the seven year old little girl who couldn’t save the creature was. _He killed him he killed him he killed him he..._

_A red saber flashed and then its light went out.. Red was the color of the blood that filled the man’s veins. The same blood racing wildly through the young man’s body. Why didn’t you speak, father? You’re falling to the ground, looking at me with eyes full of anguish, but I have no need of this. I had to do this, can’t you understand? He’s controlling me. He swore I would become a stronger person, that I would finally find out who I am thanks to him._

_But it’s all wrong._

The hand holding the saber trembled, as did its owner. A tear quickly rolled down Ben’s face and, as he wiped it off, others followed, blurring his vision. He fell to his knees, trying to keep a stoic face, but emotions started to violently churn out of his mind, of his lips...

 

 

*

 

Rey was busy focusing on the beginning of her training when those images started to invade her senses unexpectedly. She couldn’t block them; it would have been impossible. Two voices were talking at the same time, events followed each other like a Holocron, and she was the only spectator. She touched her forehead, a subtle sob escaped from her lips. _He killed him!_

She turned to glance at Luke, frightened, and wasn’t surprised to find him frozen on the spot, staring in front of him, his mouth a sharp line. The hilt of his saber slipped through his fingers, and the metallic sound of it hitting the stone and echoing amongst the trees hurt her ears. Then he stood up and was gone in an instant, heading to the Palace, running like Rey had never seen him before. Each of his steps hid fears and words he was unable to shout out loud. She swallowed and waited. The waiting stretched into hours, in which she tried to kill the time by wandering through the woods, hoping the light filtering through the leaves could help her calm down.

Her first reaction, when those pictures crossed her mind, was incredulity: it wasn’t possible. Ben couldn’t have swung the sword on his father, on Han Solo, the often absent war hero. He couldn’t have fallen to that point, not the Ben she knew. The serious and quiet boy, who was gentle. The man who fought with her, teaching her how to improve her saber grip. Ben ruffling her hair when he finally saw her focusing on her studies, waiting for her to stick her tongue out in response before leaving. No, she couldn’t believe that.

And yet...

Luke didn’t return for hours. Once the sun started to set on the horizon, Rey understood that waiting for him was pointless. She left the woods, anxiety gripping her heart, but she couldn’t do anything beyond passing through the garden gate and disappearing into Theed’s alleys, searching for any possible distraction to keep her mind away from what she had seen earlier. Finally, she climbed the ancient walls of the city, where one could watch the sun slowly making way for the night to come. Sitting on the stone parapet, she let her legs dangle and stared at the tips of her woollen boots, lost in thought. She didn’t want to go back to the palace and face the consequences of what had happened, but the desire to find out Ben’s fate was too strong. And yet she stayed.

_You’ve embraced your destiny with your head held high, Kylo Ren. Aren’t you satisfied?_

_Go away!_ she murmured, the whispered yell shaking her soul. The other laughed, and every laugh was a stab in her side.

_You’ve abandoned what you were. You’ve embraced who you are. Tear Ben Solo off of you, you no longer need him._

_Kill him._

_No!_

_Fulfill your path._

She left the city while artificial lights replaced the warmth of the sun, and a cold breeze forced people to shut themselves in their homes. Now she had nothing left to do but return to her room and wait for Luke to come, accompanied by awful news. She bit her lips and, almost without noticing, she picked up her pace. Her biggest fear, the one which surpassed all the others, was to see the relationship between her and Ben change completely. To witness those serene moments they shared, that sparkle of relief lighting up Ben’s eyes when Rey looked at him too being gone forever, just like a dream.

As if they never existed.

She shook her head and wrapped herself in the poncho she was wearing to keep the damp of the evening away. The only way she had to find out what had happened was to work up the courage and going home. If what she lacked what just that: the courage to accept what had happened.

 _Stupid, stupid, stupid!_ she muttered to herself, biting her lips. She desperately hoped Ben could hear her, though she wasn’t completely sure of it. Who knew where he was now.

 

*

 

Luke found her in her room a few hours later, laying on the bed. He didn’t knock on the door, but sensing his presence wasn’t that difficult, once he stepped inside the room: he was restless and sad, and feeling utter and enormous pain that made her eyes and heart ache, as if she had stared too long at a blinding light.

He sat next to her and started to speak. It wasn’t one of his usual discourses, a statement here and there, spaced out by his silences and her questions. First with a trembling voice, growing more and more certain, he told her what happened. He explained how Ben had killed Han, his lifelong friend and war hero, and how Han fell in a dark throne room, under his son’s gaze. He told her of the voice that tormented his nephew’s nights (and even Rey’s but he did not know that), about how Snoke was killed years before but still lived in the Force as a spirit, trying to restore his reign of terror and subjugation, thanks to the influence he had on Ben. About the gift he had left him, and how that power was kept hidden from the world, just like Ben’s true nature. Of how his nephew had looked at him with empty eyes that scared him so much, of how he held back from murdering the child who had called him uncle for so many years, and how, because of that, he had felt weak and helpless. Standing the centre of the hall, he’d screamed and shouted, using the Force to try and bend Ben down, breaking him like a dead branch with a single violent hit. He murmured this, while caressing the sheet where Rey was laying, as if every pause made him age and every minute was a year, a century.

He stopped talking for a few minutes, and Rey feared he would just leave without saying anything else, leaving her in the dark of the night without the comfort of a friendly presence. But it was just a short silence. He continued talking a few minutes after, his voice empty.

“And then I looked into his eyes, Rey. There was nothing... the child I knew, the kid I trained, was gone. Snoke took him, made him murder his own father to tie him to himself to him and he didn’t hesitate. I wasn’t able to kill him because Leia would have suffered even more. She didn’t deserve to see both her husband and son dead. But I can’t forget those eyes.”

Something she sensed in the bleakness of that statement made her rise up.

She turned and sat down, suddenly more awake than she had been the whole day, aware that a very small hope still existed. She didn’t even know why she was reacting that way: she should have felt as bad as her teacher did, disheartened and disappointed... but, beneath the ashes of those feelings, her soul reared its head. She couldn’t just give up and abandon Ben. He would never have done that to her, she was sure of it.

“Are you sure it was him, Master, and not just the creature Snoke is trying to create?”

Luke hesitated for a moment, and that was all she needed to make her heart fill with a renewed courage. Then he shook his head.

“It doesn’t matter, Rey. I’ve failed him. we’ve all failed him. I was the first to make a mistake, when I didn’t do anything more to prevent his demons from taking over him. I was sure he was going to make it, that he could defeat them on his own. It is all my fault.”

“How can you just give up like that?” She jumped on her feet and started pacing back and forth in the room like a caged creature. “If something of Ben is still there. Something of him, of his soul, I want to find it. I want to help him get it back. He won’t be able to bring his father back or make amends for his mistakes, I know, but we can’t abandon him. I can’t.” Head in her hands, she waited for Luke to speak, to scold her or...

She could barely hear him sneer, his words bitter. “What makes you think there’s still something to save in him, Rey? If you could have seen his face, you’d know I’m not joking. Nothing is sure yet, but as soon as Leia comes back, a trial will be held. He will pay for what he did. I’m sure he’s going to be jailed for life. Neither you or I can do anything about it.”

Rey bit her lip. She knew there was some truth in Luke’s words, that Ben was really a murderer and he was going to be punished for his crimes, and yet she couldn’t stop thinking about his smile. If there was still a single chance to help him, she would find it.

Luke stood up. He did so almost without a sound, barely stirring the air around him. “Go to bed, Rey. Tomorrow will be a long day.”

He always said goodbye that way, but in those words, this time, there was nothing of his usual calm demeanor. Rey kept looking at the window, her silhouette only illuminated by the dim light of a candle she lit to give herself strength that faintly smelled of flowers and moss. Outside, the rain had started to pour. Meadows avidly drank the water that would make them greener. Her Master pulled his hood up and went away, leaving a sense of emptiness in the room.

She stood on her feet for what seemed like an eternity, until they started to ache and her back begged her to lay on the bed. She undressed, blew out the candle and pulled the blankets up to her face to shield herself from the negative thoughts that were about to make her head explode, but they were stronger and louder than her, threatening to overwhelm her.

 

 

_She never knew how she managed to fall asleep. She held the blanket tight in her fist to calm down and, after turning two or three times around in her bed, she was finally able to get some sleep. It was a restless sleep, filled with nightmares where Snoke’s voice ordered her and Ben to kill each other and then laughed. Dreams filled with black stone thrones, hands covered in blood, her saber plunging into Ben’s chest without a single yell leaving his lips, as if he was happy to die that way, by her hand. Images of them fighting, then falling and falling down to a wood that looked familiar but it wasn’t the one from her trainings and that, for a moment, reminded her of all the happy moments they had shared._

_Princess Leia was crying. Ben didn’t have the courage to wipe her tears away._

_Then, she found herself in a white room, illuminated by the dim lights of Ohma-D’un, Rori, and the third moon, peeking from the open window. Ben was laying on a bed similar to hers, but made of black wood with red blankets wrapping him in an suffocating embrace. He seemed asleep, but as soon as she got closer to him, he opened his brown eyes and stared at her, lips trembling as a child’s, the bare soul of a man left alone with his mistakes._

_When he spoke, his voice was nothing more than a whisper._

_“Come to me. Please.”_


	4. Chapter 4

 

She didn’t wait for the break of dawn.

Just as Ben reached out his hand towards her and Rey’s fingers touched the cold and smooth leather of his gloves, the dream began to vanish around her, leaving her laying on the bed, wide eyes staring at the ceiling. Before she could even start to formulate a rational thought or try to rationalise what she saw, she was already standing on her feet.

She didn’t even know why she was rummaging through her drawers to fill up an old bag with clothes, but a strong urgent feeling was pushing her to hurry up, to sneak out of her room, hoping no one would see her. People probably weren’t wandering around late because of the fuss that had happened a few hours before, but one could never too careful in such circumstances... and she couldn’t risk being seen. Her plan would have gone to ruin.

Assuming her crazy idea to go and search for Ben and to accompany him in whatever he was about to do could be considered as a real “plan”.

Instinct guided her, and over the years she had learnt to fully trust the signals sent by the Force to the point that she never doubted the wisdom of the decisions it made her take, no matter how absurd they might seem. Ben asked her for help, and that was enough: she was going to show up to the first place she was sure to find him. Luckily enough, the hangars were not too far from her room, but not so close to the Palace to make her movements detectable.

She decided to run along the inner perimeter of the building, then through the bushes and small shrubs in the garden, hoping no one would look out the windows while trying to tame their insomnia. She mentally thanked herself for not waiting for sunrise to move, following the same instinct telling her that Ben was about to get away from Naboo and that he too didn’t have any intention to wait much longer. If she closed her eyes for a moment, all that confusion and pain she had felt earlier turned to determination: Ben was plotting something. He was moving frantically, rage put aside replaced with the coldness typical of calmly thought-out decisions. He was packing his saber, then left the room and stunned the guards on watch with a mere gesture of his hand. The princess was sleeping in her room, but he couldn’t linger another minute and think of what he had done, not when he had a task to accomplish.

_Maybe this will be the last._

She ran to the hangar, the one from which the airships carrying Naboo’s royal family emblem took off. Fortunately, she was familiar enough with the building to get in while avoiding the security systems. She knew which ship Ben was heading to.

Among recently built X- and Y-Wings, inactive astromech droids, and other disused ships waiting for a pilot to make them fly again, stood out an old and weathered Corellian freighter, that must have been truly loved by its owner. Rey allowed herself a small smile: she knew that ship. She’d seen it fly countless times across the skies of Naboo, headed who knew where, and stories depicting it as a protagonist ran from mouth to mouth among the smugglers and adventurers she met in Theed’s inns: stories of how that ship – a piece of garbage, apparently – had left Tatooine and entered legend, accompanying the Princess and her brother in the fight against the Empire. Every time she listened to one of those men talk about the routes it had travelled and how the ship had run through the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs, she couldn’t do anything but dream for hours and, once outside of the tavern, she pretended to be packing her speeder up with smuggled wares and going on adventure, towards the most unexplored areas of the galaxy. Seeing it standing out among other ships, waiting for someone to activate it and take off to new journeys, tugged at her heart. She had a mission to fulfil; indulging in memories had no use.

Despite her fears, she got in without any trouble: the security systems were easy to evade for her, and she had acquired plenty of experience thanks to the study of the different freighter models. Crawling through the boxes amassed in the corners, careful not to bump into anything, she made her way to the famous ducts the adventurers loved gossiping about, the ones that allowed Han Solo to hide the wares he smuggled about the galaxy. Luckily, they appeared to have been used quite recently, thus hiding inside was almost as easy as entering them.

The first part of the plan was about infiltrating and waiting. The rest would have come after, or at least she hoped so.

She didn’t have to wait long before hearing the ramp open and the steps of the next pilot making their way to the cockpit. What struck her the most, though, was the deep voice of the young man calling for her, almost as if he had known he was going to find her there, crouched down among wires and replacement parts, eyes closed and knees clutched to her chest, almost trying to be invisible.

“Rey? I know you’re in there.”

She remained silent. What else could she do? Her first urge was to jump out and yell at him to try and make him understand that she was going to follow him everywhere, prevent him from doing something stupid... but now that she was there, alone, about to leave for who knew where, she started to lose her confidence. Why did she follow her instinct in such a childish way? What if Ben was just going to drop her in the hangar, preventing her from following him?

No, he wasn’t going to: a part of her, the one that always stayed calm when the rest of her didn’t, was telling her he had no intention of hurting her. And yet, what had happened the day before still shook her.

“You couldn’t have been anywhere else. I sensed your agitation from the moment you woke up. If you think I’m planning on pulling you out of there by force, you’re wrong. It would be pointless, I know how stubborn you are.” He smiled, without any amusement. “You will soon find out this won’t be a pleasure trip.”

Her neck was starting to ache, but she had no intention of getting out and giving him satisfaction. She heard Ben pushing some controls, then pulling a lever and, as if by magic, the hangar’s gate was opening to release them. He was probably using the Force, she told to herself, not being able to recall Luke’s angry face whenever he used it for unorthodox purposes – _“This is not how the Force works!”_ he yelled – and wondered where her teacher was at that moment. What was he thinking, if he had somehow sensed her actions, just as she knew that Ben was up to something.

Ben broke the silence again.

“I’ve set the coordinates to reach the Milky Way. I don’t even know if they’re right or not, I read them on an old brief written by an adventurer from Chandrila, but that’s not important. I have to get there. It’s the only reason I’ve not remained in Theed to pay for my crimes.”

His voice was grave, but firm: the determination she had sensed hadn’t faded. He kept maneuvering the ship that once belonged to his father, touching the controls with the same hands that drove a saber into the man’s heart, and yet he didn’t seem to care at all. He did something terrible, unforgivable, but exactly how did he think he was to make amends by disappearing in a corner of the galaxy from which only a few had returned?

Exhausted by the pain in her shoulders and tired of staying hidden, Rey pushed her hands against the grating above her head and moved it to the side, getting out of her refuge. Ben only threw a distracted glance at her: he must have sensed her intention and movement, from when she’d gotten up to the moment she’d crawled into the Falcon. She was so foolish, thinking their connection could just break at will.

She sank into one of the padded seats not far from the cockpit, in front of a dusty Dejarik board. She decided to avoid him, until that embarrassing initial situation had settled, but the destination shown on the maps shocked her too much to keep her promise.

“Mortis?” she exclaimed. “But it’s in Wild Space! It’s so far, it will take us at least two months to get there.”

“Not with this ship.” Ben had finally turned to her direction with a smirk on his face that, for the first time, showed in his eyes as well. There was something of Han Solo, the captain so proud of his ship, inside him, more than Ben wanted to admit. “The records of the travelers that could reach it are confused and incomplete, but I have no other choice. Around Mortis spreads the Path of the Souls, the Milky Way. If there’s something true to those stories, if the Force was truly born in that forgotten sector, maybe…”

She shook her head with enough strength to hurt herself. Ben kept looking at the controls in front of him, lost in his thoughts. She noticed he was holding a pair of golden dice in his hand, shifting them from palm to palm without even looking at them.

“They’re just… stories,” she murmured faintly. “Legends. We don’t even know if it truly exists, a planet named Mortis. Not even a Milky Way where souls gather before dissolving into the Force.”

When her parents abandoned her, leaving her to Luke’s care, she couldn’t just let it go. She had cried and fought for days, hoping they might come back to take her away. So she waited. Her Master never spoke of them in order to not to raise any false hope, but one day he had to tell her that they were probably dead, else they would have returned for her a long time ago. Of course, that was only if they had truly wanted her and not left her with Luke only to get rid of her. Scared by her strange gift. Growing up and listening to those stories, the sadness she had borne from the thought of being only a burden to them had mixed with the hope of being able to look for them, one day, in that place between dreams and reality. If they were truly dead, maybe they were waiting for her there…

“You sound like my uncle, sometimes.” He shook his head and put the golden dice back on the dashboard. “Legends often hide the deepest truths and, as I told you, I have no other choice. I can only try and get there. Accomplish my mission and whatever happens later, only the Force knows. If you don’t want to follow me, I turn around and leave you on Naboo.”

She considered that offer. Going back to Theed, pretending that none of this ever happened, lying to Luke and the Princess about Ben, continuing to train… and sensing his every movement, every choice he made. Seeing him in her dreams, feeling him rejoicing, suffering, and losing himself forever in the infinity of the galaxy. Or maybe coming back as a champion.

She couldn’t just let him go. She couldn’t stand hearing him in her head and being powerless, without any chance to help him.

“The choice is yours.”

They both stayed in silence. Above the controls, the dice faintly jingled, bumping into each other.

She gave him a sideways look and decided that, for today at least, she didn’t want to keep on arguing. She pulled her bag out of the hole where she had left it and took the saber out of it, shifting the hilt around in her hands just as Ben had played with that old keepsake on the dashboard, trying not to think for a moment about the journey they had just started. Outside of the ship, Naboo’s system was already far away, along with Luke’s presence.

 

 

_Once, Luke had sent her to the market in order to look for ingredients to prepare medical compresses. As soon as she finished her errands, she sneaked into a small quiet tavern in Theed -- one of her favourites -- where anyone could eat fruits coloured in the most unusual ways and listen to the stories of smugglers resting planetside before leaving for their routes again._

_Sitting behind a hidden table, she heard an elderly man telling a tale of Mortis. A far away planet, appearing as a dark and blurred shape to those brave enough to approach it, but actually hid a heart filled with lush forests and volcanoes, cruel rocks and underground lava rivers. The Milky Way was filled with planets of that kind, the adventurer had stated while showing some scribbled notes on a yellowed sheet, covered in drawings she couldn’t quite see. A trail of asteroids and small scattered planets, stars of every kind that shone, and mysterious satellites no one had named yet. No one wanting safe travel ever ventured out there: the less travelled and farthest routes went all the way to Dantooine, outside of the Outer Rim, but none dared to go further._

_The man showed his drawings to anyone willing to listen, claiming that the ones who had reached Mortis ended up going mad, chased by visions and images of their dear lost ones. The Milky Way, Path of the Souls, the heavenly route travelled by those who had left earthly world, searching their peace within the Force... or so the old religions said, but those stories had won over the commoners’ hearts as well, even those who didn’t believe in the Force. He nodded, sure of himself, answering those inviting him to stop spreading lies, swearing he had truly landed on that planet, and that he was perfectly able to recount what happened to him. The audience kept listening at him, enraptured. Only a few questioned what he was saying._

_She had listened to those stories with a vague interest, the same state of mind when she picked a book from a shelf in the library, reading the adventures of the ancient Sensitives, or of the space merchants who had left their travel logs to the Naberries. But those tales never abandoned her. Even after months and years, she couldn’t forget them. Because, no matter if they were only myths, though no one said there was anything true to them -- every story was based on something real._

_Maybe she was going to be the one to find that one out._


	5. Chapter 5

 

“Did you really resurrect a Tooka when you were a child?”

Ben snorted, more annoyed by being so unprepared rather than by the question itself. They were sitting in the cockpit, following a calm route where they could set autopilot without any problem. Even though she had never had the chance to pilot big ships, Rey was immediately attracted to the Falcon’s controls, so she sat in the co-pilot’s seat in a heartbeat. At first she was struck by euphoria, then she froze, as if something hit her: she had been sure Ben was going to reject her. Oddly enough, it didn’t happen. Even though they had been travelling for only a week, their coexistence was slowly unveiling to be surprisingly simple to handle.

“Yes, I did.” He slightly shook his head, a gesture that made his wavy hair spread across his face, as if he were trying to shield himself from her gaze. “I was a child, didn’t realize what was happening to me and I didn’t for long time. Such power seems incredible, almost special, until you realize how people start looking at you differently because of it.”

“I was just a child, not realizing the import of what happened.” He stopped short. “Then, growing up, I realized I should have kept that power to myself. People knew I was a Sensitive and were already suspicious. There was no reason to confirm what they were already afraid of.”

Rey lifted her gaze, and she was surprised to see Ben staring at her. Their eyes met halfway, and she could understand him like never before. The solitude, the fear of not being accepted: weren’t those the same feelings he felt too, after all? Her parents had abandoned her because she was a Sensitive and, as such, she wasn’t easy to handle. She had hoped to find love and understanding in her Master, but Luke never hugged her when she afraid of the dark, never whispered kind words so she could feel at ease whenever the training became too harsh. He was skilled, strong, and yet distant, almost as if an ancient pain had turned his hermit heart to stone. Ben had been the only one to experience those situations before her.

“People never understand,” he whispered again, lowering his eyes a little out of embarrassment. “They merely feel the urge to keep away from those who are different from them and pretend to understand them. Always from a safe distance. This is why fewer and fewer Sensitives are born lately. Luke always said that, instead of belonging to a minority, they’d rather ignore their true potential.”

He kept sitting in front of her, arms held tight to his chest, and in a moment Rey felt she couldn’t hold back: words spilled out of her mouth with no control, recounting the parts of their childhood that were so much alike, so he could understand her, so that he could feel less lonely and stop yelling at her like some days before.

“He talked to me,” she began confessing. “When I was a child, when we were training together. Snoke. At that time, I didn’t know who he was, of course… He was just an evil and sinister voice, whispering things to me. I tried not to listen to him anymore, but the more I tried to ignore him, the more he pushed me to do what I would have never wanted to do, preying on my weaknesses. I was afraid, but never told Luke. I don’t know why. Maybe I didn’t want to cause him trouble, or perhaps I was ashamed of myself. Of not being able to resist him.” She twisted her hands in her lap. “But when you first spoke of him, of what he made you do, I’ve recognized that feeling. Perhaps his presence didn’t haunt me as long as it did with you, but…” Her throat ached as if she was about to burst out crying, a big and painful lump she couldn’t swallow no matter what. “…but I get it. I understand what happened. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did.”

Silence fell over them, and she allowed herself to take a breath to wipe tears away, as they were dangerously close to start falling down her face. Beside her, Ben was no longer stiff, but he didn’t emanate the serenity she was hoping for.

“You had every right to.” The sorrowful glance he threw at her was unbearable. “You’re not the one who should be ashamed of what they’ve become. That privilege is on me.”

 

*

 

 

When bedtime came, she slowly followed him to his cabin.

Ben didn’t try to stop her, didn’t refuse her company, not even after laying on the bed and seeing her remain there, sitting beside him, as if she didn’t really know what to do. He didn’t complain even as he felt Rey’s fingers caressing his soft black hair: maybe he was hoping for that human contact as well. He was too proud, too shy to ask her to sleep next him, but Rey understood the silent request in his eyes. Eventually, they fell asleep next to each other like two exhausted children after a day spent playing. Rey lay her head on the side of the bed and her legs on the floor; Ben splayed gracelessly, arms hanging loosely from the bed. The morning after, she could barely remember anything about the last night, besides whispering to calm his sleep. He kept tossing in his sleep and murmuring nonsense phrases. _Shh, shh_ , she said. Her sleepy lips subconsciously reacting to his cries, until Ben fell asleep again.

They were two leaves from the same branch; that journey helped her realize that more with each passing day. Sometimes, she could sense a sadness deeper than her surroundings, and she started to wonder what had happened to her parents once they left her with Luke, a cloak rustling in the darkness and their steps farther and farther away. Other times, she laughed her head off and nothing else mattered, just that intoxicating feeling of pure joy. If she turned around, she realized the same feelings were projected on Ben’s face as well: if she suffered, he remembered pain. When he smiled, a subtle glee made her heart race.

Chandrila, Serenno, Hoth, Mustafar: the names of the planets flowed under her gaze as mysterious words as Rey read the maps, trying to picture different scenarios, but Ben was breathing beside her and she couldn’t think of anything else but the way she had calmed him down the night before. Maybe they had been bound together since before their birth, or maybe not, but was it truly important? She only knew that, in the uncertainty of the galaxy, Ben Solo was the only one to have the answers she was seeking for, and she represented the same answers to him.

 

 

_When the Queen began to get sick, the whole planet held its breath._

_News chased each other from mouth to mouth, no two telling the same version of the story, but one thing was certain: Padmé Amidala was being consumed by a disease day after day, and there was nothing to do about it. Healers and sages from distant places had, in vain, gone to assist her, but each one of them left the Queen’s room in silence after an examination, with the same response on their lips. No one could have saved her, they repeated, while Anakin Skywalker clenched his fists and cursed the fate that was toying with him until the very end._

_When her twin children were born, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, even Anakin. They were two healthy children and Padmé couldn’t stop kissing them and holding them to her chest, happy as her husband hadn’t seen her in a long time. But it was no more than a brief delay: after a few days, her health started declining again. The Queen was withering away day after day, to the point that she couldn’t even breastfeed Luke and Leia, or get up from the bed to reach the cradle and hold them in her arms. A month after the twins’ birth, her conditions appeared to be desperate._

_In the crowd of healers shifting at his wife’s bedside, Anakin Skywalker didn’t stand out anymore. He walked back and forth, desperate, face between his hands. He felt powerless. His counsellors had been shaking their heads for days, suggesting he should give up and accept the inevitable, but he didn’t want to lose his wife. He just couldn’t. He loved Padmé more than life itself, so he was never going to abandon her._

_Days passed, and a dark force trembled behind the court’s back. Darth Sidious and Snoke sat beside Anakin, whispering seductive promises and pretending to soothe his suffering. Do you really want to save your wife? Do you want Padmé to come back from the underworld to smile at you, free from pain, from her sickness? You have the power to do this. Just trust us, and the Dark Side. They murmured encouragements, praised him and, in silence, Anakin Skywalker made a decision, and trained._

_Nights passed and died at the break of each dawn, and the hopes of the regime with them._

_When the Queen passed away at sunset, the people stood in silence. Everyone but her husband: a grin twisted his face while he took her hand, a mixture of pain and anger, and satisfying revenge. He did it. He defied death, and no one would have ever dared to take his loved one away from him._

_That night, along with the Queen, Anakin’s soul had left his body. Darth Vader laughed hysterically, while tears filled his eyes._


	6. Chapter 6

 

_Time after_

 

A sudden, violent jolt made her hit the control panel.

Murmuring a complaint and rubbing her stomach to soothe the pain, Rey could barely get up. She tried to sit and take control of the Falcon again, but a new turbulence shook her again, leading her to miss her seat. This time, though, Ben’s arms caught her before she could fall.

Rey relaxed a bit and let herself enjoying the safe feeling of his gentle touch. They had just reached Mortis’ orbit when an asteroid field took them by surprise, driving all the Falcon’s instruments crazy. Ben had assured her that the ship had already gone through a lot worse, but this route was more dangerous and difficult than any other one she could think of. They could only adjust the instruments to make them follow the original path without too much damage, but rocks kept hitting the ship on all sides.

“At this rate, our landing will be in jeopardy,” Ben sighed. He was surely worried, but it was like he had left behind some of the sorrow and pain he had felt since the beginning of their journey. Those weeks spent together had changed him, changed both of them. They shared their silent moments the best way they could, because both of them had learned to understand each other’s, as if that balance between them had always existed. She allowed herself to embrace the serenity for a moment, but a bump sent them to the floor, while the ship, hit by a bigger rock now, began to shake.

“There’s nothing we can do.” Ben stood up and started tinkering with the controls, his lips tight. That wasn’t a good sign. “I can’t put the ship on autopilot, the controls aren’t responding. We have to land without it.”

“We’ll crash on an asteroid’s surface!” Rey objected, while scanning the maps with her eyes and hands, as if they could show her the method to cross the asteroid field. “Maybe we can hide somewhere safer and…”

“Asteroids don’t stop,” Ben said with a shake of his head. “It’s written in every report, even that Chandrilan’s logbook said so. This area is full of them, that’s why no one could go past it. We have to turn on the manual override and try an emergency landing.” He breathed in and out, placing a hand on his face. “It’s the only way to get to Mortis.”

“But…”

“Do you trust me or not?” Ben whispered, and Rey was surprised by the beesching tone of his words. She gripped the back of her seat tightly to avoid falling again and then put a hand on Ben’s shoulder: _yes._ This was one of those moments when words were unneeded. They both bent over the controls, teeth gritted. Rey closed her eyes and lost herself in the feeling: it was the same feeling she felt when they used to train together years before. A great stream of energy was borne from one and flew to the other without distinction, as if they were both nourishing it, and that stream was the Force itself. They were a single entity with two beating hearts, an unstable balance that persisted, even if none of them could exactly explain why.

She had to trust Ben. Otherwise, how else were they going to get out of this situation?

She grabbed him and gritted her teeth even more, while he pressed a series of buttons. They couldn’t do anything but watch as the Falcon reached Mortis’ orbit, diving straight down toward its surface, faster and faster until lights and colors melted together and their screams filled the cockpit. She remembered holding onto Ben’s legs while he fell to the floor, then nothing: only a loud roar and the sound of engines shutting down at once.

 

*

 

She must have passed out, because she woke up after a while – she hoped it was only a while – with an aching head. Next to her, Ben stood up and looked around. They had landed outside of a forest. A strange one, with white, withered trees in small clusters, like pale skeletons standing. She rubbed her eyes to soothe them, but the dim fog surrounding them didn’t look like a mere illusion.

“This is Mortis,” she overheard Ben murmur, more to himself than to her. “Of course, I should have realized that…”

He let the sentence drop as he lift head up: above them, a bright stream of light cut through the sky. Blues, reds, and purples, like a vivid wound filled with faraway, inaccessible stars.

The Milky Way.

After all his research, after reading about this place in books and reports, they had finally arrived: the disturbing beauty of that view left them without words. Rey rubbed her eyes again in wonder. Compared to those beautiful lights, Mortis’ strange vegetation didn’t look so interesting. _Where are we going now?_ Rey nearly asked. The planet seemed uninhabited and no one could tell them where the lost souls were, the ones who had left the world of the living… Then a whisper caught her attention. A neutral voice, barely stronger than a breath of wind, caressing her ears. Oddly, it didn’t scare her like it should have.

_Rey… child of the slums, mother and father to yourself…_

She swiftly turned around, but she couldn’t see anything. Ben shifted nervously beside her; maybe he had heard the same voice whispering something to him as well. His voice broke the silence.

“I think that’s the right direction, over there.” He pointed to a spot where the trees grew thicker and the fog wrapped about them, like a woman wrapping herself in a long, white coat.

“I’ve read about an altar somewhere, a place where spirits might appear to whoever is searching for them, but we can’t be sure until we try to get closer.” He was tense, desperately trying to keep his voice tone detached, but it was clear that situation made him feel lost.

“Guide me.” She took his hand. “Let’s go. If we can’t find anything, we’ll come back to the Falcon and try to leave the planet, one way or another.”

She didn’t speak of what hung in the air between them: the controls were too damaged to make the ship fly again, it would probably take days to make the ship fully operational again, and of course she wasn’t even sure fixing it was actually possible. Rey sighed. There was nothing else left to do except move forward and try to not lose themselves in a place they didn’t know.

_Ben Solo Ben Solo Ben Solo…_

The whispers grew louder, but this time both Rey and Ben could hear them. Ben’s name seemed to fill the air, then the voices became more accusatory, less neutral. Almost languid.

_Boy without a future, king on a bloody throne, you who bend life and death to your will… listen to us…_

“Can you hear them?” Rey asked, scared. It was easy to ignore a murmur that only seemed to say her name, but when some inarticulate words start to sound like a real invitation, her heart began to beat faster in her chest. She gripped Ben’s hand tighter and could feel him squeezing her fingers too, as if she were his only safe anchor.

“Yes,” he whispered. “They come from that direction.” He pointed again in front of them. Between the trees becoming more and more sparse, some sort of white boulder with hazy outlines could be seen, standing out against the black soil, typical of the planet. An altar, perhaps the one Ben had talked about earlier?

Suddenly, fear tightened her form so strongly that she began to shake.

It wasn’t like her; a Sensitive must overcome fear through their self-confidence built from years of training, but what could a girl like her do, on a planet she didn’t know, with a ship crumbling to pieces, thousands of miles away from home? She had no intention of scaring Ben as well; if they both wavered it would mean the end of their journey. Suddenly, he stopped and placed his hands on her shoulders, staring into her eyes with a serious face. It was the stare of an old man on a young face, the one of a man who had seen too much and only wished to forget everything and start over again.

“Rey, no matter we find down there, I don’t want you to put yourself in danger. If the situation gets out of hand you must save yourself and leave me here, do you understand? I have a task to complete, and I don’t want you to suffer because of me and my choices. So…” He breathed in and, for a moment, it was just as if Mortis’ heavy atmosphere had lifted, making them breathe easier. “Just leave me here. Go back to the Falcon, follow the maps, and the travelers’ notes I’ve left you, and be safe.”

“No!” she exclaimed, and without noticing she had covered his hands with hers, lifting them from her shoulders. “Do you realize what you’re asking me? Leave you here, in the furthest corners of the galaxy, and go back home as if nothing happened?” Her throat seemed to burn as she shouted those words, but she didn’t really care. “I can’t Ben. You know I can’t. You know…”

“Please.”

It was the second time he had pleaded with her in only a few hours, and suddenly Rey realized that nothing he could say would convince her. No threat or reprimand was ever going to work, his anger and stubbornness were nothing in the face of his purpose, of the cold determination with which he had decided on this journey. He looked her in the eyes, hoping she could understand, but Rey averted her gaze from his.

A moment later, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him without saying anything else, trying to keep herself from crying, because it was the only way she could say him what she had tried to say before: _we’re in this together, we will come out of this together._ Ben’s lips were cold, and a tear fell down a moment later, but she didn’t know whether it came from him or her. She kept kissing him, letting him kiss her back, sinking her fingers in his curls, wishing everything around them could disappear as it if were only a bad dream. A strange, twisted nightmare bound to disappear in the idle light of the morning on Naboo…

It didn’t last long enough, or maybe it had lasted too long, but when they moved away from each other, Ben smiled again at her. His cheeks flushed, but maybe that was the unnatural light of the planet playing with her eyes. He held her hand tightly, and they both realized they knew what to do.

“Let’s go.”

Rey nodded. The stone seemed to shine with its own light under the white trees. Whispers began chasing them again, as if they were part of the fog or its messengers, almost escorting the guests towards their destination.

Once they went farther into the clearing where the white stone seemed to carve a place for itself in the ground among Mortis’ skeletal vegetation, the voices suddenly stopped. An unbreakable silence muffled them, so immense and crushing it almost seemed unnatural, as if someone had sucked out every sign of life, every sound. Not all the trees were white; some were green, and a group of shrubs seemed to thrive upon the bare ground, but the atmosphere was absurdly different from any other planet they had ever read about before.

“Are you alright?” Ben asked. Rey grabbed his fingers again as an answer and nodded. They both took a step forward to better look at the altar, and in that moment the blur surrounding the trees seemed to thicken and started to cover them completely, hiding both of them from each other’s sight.

She had no time to scream, and she felt the grip on his fingers loosening. Ben was drifting away from her as if swept off from a mysterious force and Rey couldn’t do anything but try to dispel the blur with her hands.

But there was nothing she could do. Ben was far from her. She could only see white fog around her along with the indistinct shapes of the trees, some green spots, the black granular volcanic soil, and nothing else. She angrily shook her head, retraced her steps, tried to whisper his name, because she was afraid of saying it out loud. She couldn’t give up this way, she couldn’t go back to Theed without him, she never could…

 

 

_How many times had she thought about the chance to see her parents again? A lot._

_How many times had she reminded herself that it was useless, that Luke was right and, once and for all, she would have to accept it and go on with her life, without waiting for them? A lot more._

_Still, a part of her desperately wanted to believe those stories. She held on to the idea Ben’s journey had some sense because, if she didn’t really believe it, she would have thrown away her only hope to meet her parents again._

_Because, no matter if everyone only saw that wish as the hope of a poor orphan girl, the sole dream of being caressed by their gentle hands again helped her move forward once again._


	7. Chapter 7

 

She pressed a hand to her chest to feel her heartbeat.

_Separate your mind from the rest,_ her Master used to tell her: focus on herself and forget everything else was the only way not to panic. She succeeded in calming herself, then breathed deeply a couple of times, but she didn’t release a sigh of relief until she saw the fog thin out and Ben’s head emerge not far from her.

He stood still, in front of the altar, but when she moved closer he didn’t seem to realize she was there. Something kept him occupied, so occupied he didn’t even turn around. Rey leaned her head to look at his face and noticed he was staring in front of him, pupils still, almost frozen. She looked around her to see what was happening, but just when she looked at the white, stony altar, the light coming from it almost blinded her, making her lose balance…

… then, everything disappeared.

_What’s happening?_

She moved forward, uncertain, her fingers desperately searching for her heartbeat under the white fabric of her shirt to calm down. The landscape surrounding her was the same as a few moments before, but the atmosphere seemed cleaner, less rarefied and filled with a volcanic smell: it was as if something generated from the altar had carried her away, into a dimension she didn’t know, but similar to Mortis… Where, it was impossible to tell. Trees looked identical, and the altar was nowhere to be seen. There was only light, the sky, and silent vegetation. It truly felt like the deepest part of the galaxy. She rubbed her eyes.

_Rey Rey Rey Rey Rey…_

Those voices again, faint little whispers caressing her ears, slowly seeping into her soul. When her eyes adjusted to the light, she thought she spotted a feminine figure far ahead, standing still, wearing a dress in pale colors. She tensed up and, for a moment, asked herself if it was better to get closer to the woman and ask her for help, or follow her first instinct and wait there to better study the woman’s movements and determine if she was friend or foe. But the voices kept murmuring, prodding her, pricking her curiosity.

_Don’t be afraid… find out who you are, who you could have been, who you will become…_

After a moment, the figure was in front of her and Rey could look at her face, covering her mouth with a hand. Her eyes were a mix of green and brown, the freckles across her nose made her even prettier, and her hair was down, but the color of her rebellious locks was unmistakable. She saw it every time she looked at her reflection in the washbasin she used to wash her face in the morning.

She was staring at herself, and her face looked at her, intrigued, without a word.

Yet, they weren’t totally identical: the Rey in front of her was dressed in a long beige dress with a brooch and a noble emblem. She looked serene, proud: the look of someone who clearly hadn’t been worn out by the fatigue and pain of existence, and she was smiling at her with a trust she knew nothing about.

She widened her eyes in confusion; she couldn’t really be in front of another version of herself. Behind the other Rey, two figures appeared. An elderly, white-haired man with a full beard, an elegant blonde woman who waved towards her, inviting her to come closer, then put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. The voices kept whispering.

_Obi-Wan Kenobi, your grandfather. Duchess Satine Kryze, your grandmother. Can you see? This could have been your present._

_Look into your eyes._

She watched those three figures smiling at her, almost as if they had waited hours for her to show up, then the man and the woman hugged her other self, while reality changed in shape and color, opening up like a flower in bloom, becoming something else, showing her saber held by the elderly man and then by her, as if an important legacy was being left in her care. The landscape transformed into the inside of a palace, with enormous paintings covering the walls, a beautiful garden outside of the windows, and the woman sat on the throne, opening her arms to welcome her husband and the other girl, maybe even Rey herself. A world without Ben, filled with a golden light that lulled her.

_Come here, child._

“I don’t belong to your world.” Rey shook her head and that vision began to unravel, until it disappeared. The elderly man looked at her, eyes full of an ancient melancholy.

She barely had time to rub her eyes in wonder, when the scenario changed again. The light was so bright it burned her eyes. She couldn’t really distinguish the people fighting in front of her, but she could at least see a man and a woman: they both wielded a sword and neither wanted the other to prevail. A tall and fearsome man, wearing a black cape, a smaller woman, her loose, brown hair dancing around her face while fighting. A more violent sweep made the woman duck, and the man lowered his hood, showing his messy, dark curls.

Rey hit the ground with both knees, her hands clutching her aching head, mouth wide open in a scream unable to flow from her lips. Those two figures were herself and Ben, exchanging blows and backing away, moving and clashing again, and the anger in their fight was so intense it was impossible not to notice. She saw that girl getting the upper hand, then falling down and warding off a blow to hit Ben, eyes full of sinister triumph. There was cruelty and hunger for power in those gestures, and a throat tightness threatened to suffocate her.

_Kylo Ren won. There’s no light in him… do you see, my child, what your destiny would be? Do you still see the boy you know within him?_

She pressed her fingers against her temples, hoping that the vision would disappear like the previous one did, allowing her to return to Mortis and look for Ben, who was surely going through a similar situation… but she felt the Rey she could have been getting closer, and fear made her fall backwards.

_No!_

_Ben…_

Had she really screamed his name, or only thought it? She didn’t know. After a while, that new vision disappeared along with all the rest, as if time and space had begun to roll back to set her free. Rey stood up, biting her lips and holding her breath, waiting for all that to end, praying that it would end soon enough, until the colors around her changed again and she found herself staring at the Ben’s dark hair, his trembling lips, body leaning forward. His mind called out to her: she understood they were prisoners of the same illusion, and that trying to touch was useless, because the spirits haunting the Milky Way had led them there to show them some of the lives they could have lived.

An hooded figure put a finger on her lips. Be quiet, he murmured, without opening his mouth. He slowly lowered his hood to show a deep scarred face, marked by red wounds, yellow irises that stared into hers, skin tormented by the violence of past fights. He looked frightening, but there was also something gentle in him. Rey couldn’t take her eyes off him, and Ben too stared at that man without saying a word or showing recognition… but that was none other than Ben himself, an alternative version of him who still possessed the same melancholy.

_Monster!_

Princess Leia yelled his accusation with a sharp voice, pointing a finger at him, her face twisted by a snarl. _You’re not my son! He died years ago. He brought back to life many creatures, but he couldn’t do anything for himself. Don’t you see what your powers have done? Ben turned around but couldn’t get closer to her, or even run away. He stared at Leia, and Rey could see he was trembling. You’re a monster! I didn’t bring you into the world for you to destroy everything we have created for you. Is this how you repay those who raised you? How can you just run away, instead of facing the punishment you deserve?_

_Monster, monster,_ whispered those voices, as if they reveled in all the pain and confusion they created. _Freak. You shouldn’t even exist. You and your power are a mistake._ Ben held his head between his hands like Rey did mere minutes before, whispering broken words she couldn’t really hear. Leia became more and more imposing and menacing, and the monster that was and wasn’t Ben closed his eyes, his head held high as if he wasn’t ashamed.

Until…

_Don’t you see, my disciple, how your life without me could be?_ The voice that had tormented both of them countless times made its way between them like a tangible presence, even if no one could see it. Rey turned, but couldn’t find the source of it.

_They despise you, because they fear you. Would you really like to live this way? Hunted, convicted, underestimated by the ones that claim to love you, but instead put you aside? Only because you master a power they envy, deep down?_

Ben kept on muttering, and finally Rey could hear his words: _no, no, no, no_ , a litany full of sorrow similar to the ones that woke her up at night, when she could sense him tossing in his sleep. She tried to shake him from that waking nightmare, but he didn’t react.

_You can break this chain, Kylo Ren. Join me._

She realized in a moment that he was so desperate that he could just listen to those voices without blinking an eye… and wasn’t it Snoke’s aim, after all? To confuse him, made him abandon his old life to embrace the darkest part of his soul? She shook him again, fighting against that laughing ghost, that presence who whispered as if Ben was his favorite son, to welcome and protect him, but those were lies.

_Don’t look back._

Rey lifted her eyes up and saw him: white skin drawn tight on his skull, wrinkles all over it that grew in number around the scars on his head and cheeks, a sharp gaze coming from his sunken eyes. Snoke looked at them with hunger in his eyes, like a spider that just caught his prey and was eagerly waiting to devour it. He reached out to Ben with a skeletal hand.

_Do not deny your true nature._

“No, Ben!” Rey moved forward to stop him. This time she heard her voice coming out from her lips and pierce through the silence. “Don’t listen to him, he knows nothing about you. You’re nothing like that. You don’t belong to him.”

_Shut up!_ Snoke yelled too, his face deformed by rage. _You had already started down your path, Kylo Ren! Don’t let these miserable beings distract you from your goal!_

The girl grabbed him by his waist, before her mind could get the upper hand on her emotions and try to discourage her from doing something so senseless and dangerous… and in that moment, in the exact moment her arms wrapped around his waist to hold him like he was going to fall down, a blinding light enveloped them. Everything disappeared, including Snoke. Everything, except for the white altar, where an almost weightless figure was rising as if it was made of smoke.

In this glowing, unreal dimension, that figure came closer to them, until it became fully visible. Rey held her breath: she’d never seen Han Solo in person, but the elderly man who lightly touched Ben’s arm couldn’t be anyone but him. His gaze was so soft and gentle it made her want to cry; his expression spoke of someone who had waited long for something that made him happy and terribly sad at the same time. There was no grudge in his eyes, no hate. The voices around them, for the first time, stayed completely silent.

“Ben? Did you come here for me?”

Rey took a step back and let Ben go so he could get closer to the spirit who once was his father. Ben touched him with his trembling hand, and waited until the figure wrapped his smoky fingers about it. He bowed his head, defeated, while his father spoke. “So, you listened to the old stories.” The smuggler’s smile filled with cleverness, a memory from past times. “Those adventurers from Chandrila knew what they were doing, after all. You’re your father’s son, maybe now you notice it. But here…”

“Come back with me, father,” Ben interrupted, and Rey understood he would have never accepted forgiveness for what he had done. “I have the power to bring you back. The souls… I’ve searched for them, I knew I could get here and bring you back. Let me do that for you…”

Ben opened his arms, but his father stayed in his place, smiling gently and shaking his head. Suddenly, Rey understood the true purpose behind their journey. The hidden one Ben had never revealed to her, maybe because he thought she would figure it out on her own, since she knew of the stories. He wanted to use his power to bring Han Solo back from the underworld to the world of the living, rip his soul out of the Milky Way to return it to Naboo like Anakin had with his grandmother years before. But there was a reason that power brought only more sorrow instead of soothing it. Souls forced into a new body that didn’t belong to them anymore withered day by day, suffering from their parting from the place they were truly meant to be, until they died a second time. It was like they rejected the body they were pushed into; Anakin Skywalker saw Padme die again after he desperately tried to bring his beloved wife with him. He had gone insane, and Darth Vader lost the best of his soul, tainting himself with the cruelty the galaxy had learned to fear.

Rey looked at Ben, his body tense while trying to convince the spirit in front of him. Suddenly she understood; Snoke had planned everything from the start, to destroy him like he had done with his grandfather, years before. He had given him that gift, planted doubt in him, pushing him further and further into darkness so he could kill his own father, and then offered him the easiest solution to have him back and put an end to that trail of death he had laid before for him. Every resurrection, even if it held the good intentions of a child who only wanted to help others, was a significant step ahead towards his eventual ruin.

That gift, after all, came with a price: it broke his soul to pieces.

“I can’t, Ben. You know that.” Han smiled again, sadly this time. “You know well what happened to your grandmother… and to your grandfather. I can’t let you suffer more.”

“I can make things right! Things won’t go as they did before! If you come with me, my power will make you go back to who you were! Give me another chance! I… please…”

For the first time, Rey saw him crying. The tears falling down his cheeks made her feel the urge to hug him tight and tell him she understood, because she had felt so small and helpless countless times in her life but she couldn’t. That was Ben’s battle against Kylo Ren, she had to let him fight alone.

Han held him in his arms. His opalescent figure completely embraced Ben.

“No, Ben. You know this is not you talking. I won’t be the one to let you fall deeper into the abyss. I won’t let him destroy you. I already have enough things to make up for. If you bring me back, he will have your soul.”

“You have things to make up for? I’ve killed you! I’ve obeyed him, I was weak and stupid, and I’m supposed to be the heir to the throne!” Ben shook his head erratically. “If I weren’t so weak, maybe… but now…”

“You came here and searched for me. You did this for yourself, not for him.” His father smiled. “It’s enough, Ben. If you forgive me as I did with you, we don’t need anything more.” Han lightly caressed his hair, and Rey couldn’t help but thinking that, perhaps, he didn’t do that often when he was alive. He didn’t add anything; silence spoke for him and a light breeze surrounded them, making the leaves dance.

Snoke’s voice broke that atmosphere, vibrating in rage. _Why do you hesitate, Kylo Ren? Take him back with you, let your gift work upon him! You’ve waited years for this, you can’t hesitate. You must not stop. You cannot stop!_

“Don’t listen to him!” Rey said, while Han looked at them both.

“You can be better than him, Ben. Kylo Ren must not win. Don’t listen to a word he says.”

_She’s nothing to you!_ Snoke’s voice grew more and more louder and menacing, shaking Mortis’ vegetation while his spirit came forth. _He doesn’t know you like I do! My disciple, you know what you have to do to become stronger. Now, do it._

_Complete your training._

Han caressed his face again, whispering something Rey couldn’t hear. Then he disappeared, leaving a cold, determined expression on Ben’s face, full of a new resolve. When Ben turned around, the air shivered. Rey waited, Snoke grinned again, sure of his triumph.

Then he spoke.

“No.”

It was as if an invisible thread had been suddenly cut, making reality collapse around them. Snoke yelled in fury and his rage shook the trees, making them tremble, while Ben lifted his gaze with the confidence of someone who was finally set free. He didn’t give up even when the ground started to crack beneath under his feet, or when Snoke waved his arms to grab them while his screams filled the air. The other spirits shuddered about them, murmuring with their ancient voices. Ben ran, and Rey followed him, running from Snoke who still kept screaming, while the dimension around them shattered into pieces.

She didn’t even notice that the ground started to slope downwards, or the cliff in front of them, ready to swallow their steps. Ben jumped down seemingly without thinking and fell, free with the grace of a winged creature, and the smile on his lips was strangely serene.

Behind him, Rey tried to grab him by his tunic, but her sweaty fingers made her lose her grip.

Below, Ben floated down like a weightless body: if Rey didn’t concentrate with all her might to slow his fall down with the help of the Force, he would have touched the ground with much more violence.

 

 

_Padmé didn’t look like the person she once was anymore: the intelligent and sweet woman, the one he had loved for a lifetime, sat sadly in a corner. Her husband tried to make her happy in vain, giving her their children to hold or taking her to the park in Theed for a walk, her favorite place to read and think in her past life. Padmé remained silent, her mouth shut with an expression of suffering on her face, and no one and nothing could change it._

_When the life forcibly given to her ran out, Darth Vader could do nothing but watch her die again, wither like a flower on its stem. But, instead of going after the creatures who made him bring her back, he blamed himself. If only he had acted sooner, if he had embraced that power earlier, maybe his wife wouldn’t have died, he kept repeating to himself, and both Snoke and Darth Sidious soothed him, promising more greatness._

_Darth Vader couldn’t have his wife back, but he could make an entire galaxy’s life better, they whispered to him. But his gift was nothing more than a curse, and everything coming from the Lord of the Siths’ hands poisoned what they touched._

_Darth Vader sat on his throne, without any other consolation than his unlimited power._


	8. Chapter 8

 

The captain’s cabin, passed down from owner to owner during the years, had changed in its furniture but not in its comfort. It remained a perfect place to relax during break time, when the ship coasted along and the space around it seemed to hug its frame in silence, making every journey an adventure.

Ben stayed in bed for two days. Rey had to force him to sleep after such a hard fal. He wasn’t injured, but the fear of losing him had frightened her.

“Going back will be the worst part. You know that, right?”

Lying beside him, she could only caress his hair, absentmindedly sinking her fingers into the soft curls, just a little wet after a bath. Getting back to Naboo was going to take a lot of time, but they would use that time in the best of ways. Their relationship had changed so much during their journey; they had grown up, each of them discovering something new about the other. Neither Ben nor Rey would have admitted it, but both of them liked the idea of going back to sharing the Falcon’s quiet spaces.

“They can’t lock you away forever.” Rey shook her head, but she was as determined to not see the life she had just started to build with him fall to pieces. “Your mother will understand what happened. We’ll explain everything to her, we can also tell her about this journey. Whatever decision the council may take, she’ll be with us.”

“I’m not afraid of the trial,” sighed Ben, and his usual confidence went out for a moment. “I know I have to pay for what I’ve done, as it should be. I’m afraid of what will come next. The loneliness, the idea that everything I went through could start all over again. Snoke disappeared, but what if his spirit can come back? If he keeps tormenting me? I might give in, for good this time.” His upper lip trembled. “I’ve lived with his voice in my head for years, not being able to hear it anymore is almost... unnatural.”

Silence fell between them. Rey pressed her lips on his temple, gently whispering to calm him down. Gestures mattered more than words to him, and Rey had learned to communicate with him in a way only they could understand. She was grateful for the journey for that lesson.

“You won’t be alone. Whatever the future may bring, we will face it together. We’ve reached the Milky Way and came back alive. We can face all the rest, too.”

She let the soothing sound of the engines lull them again, while Mortis and the Path of the Spirits faded into the distance, becoming two memories to write about in a traveller’s logbook to keep in Theed’s Palace library, to let others read it. Yet, the whole part regarding their lives would remain a secret to everyone.

After a while, Ben broke the silence.

“What about your parents? You said you wanted to find them…”

Maybe he would have added something more, but he didn’t complete the sentence while he played with her hands. Rey breathed, giving herself a moment to think about the answer, even if she never had any doubts about it.

"I knew I’d never find them,” she sighed. “There are some things you know before you accept that they happen… but I’ve hoped anyway. For a short while, even if I knew it was meaningless. Maybe not all souls choose to show themselves, maybe they weren’t there… or perhaps we only see the ones who want to communicate with us. Your father wanted to see you because he loved you.” She smiled sadly, remembering Han and the melancholy surrounding him.

“After all, the few memories I have about them are always with me, even if they didn’t care about me. It’s the only thing that really matters.”

During the silence that followed, Ben turned slightly to caress her cheeks and kissed her. A long, slow kiss, different from the one they shared on Mortis: more aware, bringing a promise forth, and the wish that what they had shared wouldn’t stop there. Rey relaxed in his arms and allowed herself to hope. It cost her nothing to live thinking about something beautiful and to fight to obtain it.

In the end, if two imperfect beings like them were truly experiencing happiness, it meant there was always room for something extraordinary.

 

 

_Ben Solo went back to Theed afterwards._

_He didn’t believe his mother wished to see him again, but Leia’s desperate hug made him cry._

_The trial, and everything coming after it, long remained in Naboo’s annals. To report in detail what had been decided would be too long and dull, but the most important thing to know was that Ben gained another chance. After a period spent in prison, he sat on the throne completely changed and, year after year, he won his kingdom’s trust thanks to his wisdom. He came from a family that was indeed touched by the Dark Side and all the violence a tyranny can cause, but that also gave birth to Queen Padmé and her daughter Leia, two capable and merciful women. He ruled with firmness and intelligence, and even the most sceptical ones were finally convinced by his talents._

_What happened to him and Rey, his partner, remains to the imagination of the ones who are reading this book. It wouldn’t be correct to state they always lived happily, because troubles and misunderstandings didn’t fail to touch their existences, but they did their best to face them. They trusted one another, and the bond they shared during the years helped them.  
_

_They had learned an important lesson with time: even if the world around them changed, the Force kept connecting them. And no one could take that certainty away._

 

Rey read the last sentence again, then rapidly scrolled through the pages she had already written. That would do. It wasn’t perfect, but this logbook wasn’t born only to be displayed on a bookshelf in the royal library. She wrote it for herself and Ben, to help them remember how far they had gone. To read it again in the evenings, before going to bed, and laugh and cry thinking about what they went through.

She waved her hand over the scroll to dry it, and then stood up. Her handwriting wasn’t so bad, after all. Ben called her from the garden, his voice full of joy. The voice of someone looking forward to see her.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to thank the wonderful people behind this story: Ailisea, my sweet bae, who always reads and translates what I write (and encourages me, even when I find every possible fault in my stories) and lovely Mneme and Briar, who edited the piece and gave me so many useful advice. All of you mods are an amazing family, I'm so proud and lucky of being a part of a project like the Anthology <3
> 
> And... thanks to you too, reader! I hope you'll enjoy this story as much as I liked writing it :)


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